The Minimalist
by RushedLegacy
Summary: An entirely AU take at the PJO premise, throwing in one of the oldest and most non-violent religions on the planet into the mix, just to see how it plays out.


**Before the Storms**

It is a good day to be reborn.

Not that I'm in the state of mind to appreciate it.

Thing is, in Jainism, you're only reincarnated when you've, y'know, failed at life. Not good enough for eternal salvation or _moksha. _Throw this misguided soul back into the circle of life until he gets it right.

The more pertinent and relevant thing is, you're supposed to be a clean slate. Freshly mind-wiped baby. Baby human if you were basically generic, baby animal or insect, if you were an asshole. Pretty standard religious morality setup.

Which should explain why I'm not too sure about the whole Jainism thing anymore, staring out into the world, curled up in a handkerchief-sized blanket leaning into the warm body of my current mode of transportation.

"Aren't babies supposed to cry a lot?" The woman holding me turns toward the distinctly American speaker, jarring me away from the gentle green hillside and back to the muted blue of the private hospital room. I stare at the kid that had just inadvertently dragged me back to face this weird-ass reality. He shudders a little. "Y'know, as opposed to peering into your soul."

The lady holding me tries to reassure him. "Oh, that's alright dear. He's...special." The kid breaks eye-contact with me (Hah! I win!) to side-eye her. "Uh-huh. Sure Vini Aunty, your baby's the mostest specialest. Just point it away from me."

'Vini' pivots me around, carefully, to gaze down into my scrunched-up face. "Don't listen to AJ, you are a gift from the heavens, my son." I would later categorize her current expression as her "all-knowing goddess of knowing all that you do not"-face. At the moment though, I don't have enough time to process it as she peppers me with kisses, cuddling me closer to herself.

'AJ' comes to my rescue. Sorta. The change in topic drastically shifts the mood. "He's a no-show, then?"

My new mother throws him a pained glance. AJ doesn't back off though, "You never called him."

Even as I struggle to process why my mother wouldn't call my father on the day of my birth, her tone is determined. "I don't need him Alex. I can raise Rushabh on my own. I _will_ raise him on my own."

AJ lets up, though I can see this conversation is far from over. He tilts his head to the side, "Rushabh?" He chuckles,"You wanna make it even harder on yourself by raising a kid destined to be bullied?"

Vini (or Vinita, as I learn later) has it all figured out. "You can call him RJ. But I'm sticking to what we'd decided."

AJ looks taken aback, perhaps even a little pleased, but he refocuses quickly. "What'd he name him after?"

I admire the insight on this kid as Mom doesn't even bother denying it. "The first _Tirthankara_." Both me and AJ just stare back at her. "You could say he was the first deity of our pantheon."

AJ deflates a little and makes his way out of the room, "Whatever, I'll go get the nurse, get you and Numbah-One something to eat. Maybe getting some food in ya will save the kid a lifetime of trouble."

Mom sighs a little and meets my gaze, "I wish it were that simple, _beta_. I really do."

I'll spare you the details of me persisting in this feeble form of mine (I know we evolved as humans to have a lot of our growing happen outside the womb, but this "Oh no, my head's too heavy for my tiny neck!" stuff gets old _real_ quick) but suffice it to say, if it weren't for the supernatural stuff, I might've died of boredom.

Oh yeah, the supernatural stuff... Really, it was the strangest thing. Any and all critters that tried to bite little baby RJ somehow ended up... wrong. They'd, as AJ once aptly put it, 'give up on life'. The most notorious instance was this little garden snake that, having gotten a bite of 'NumbahOne' decided it wanted to dive back in it's hole head-first leaving it's body out in the open. Needless to say, it didn't survive for long after the fact.

As if 'Inspiring ritual suicide as a form of revenge' (AJ's words, not mine) wasn't enough, I came out the other side basically unscathed.

In a moment of utter stupidity, I'd once tried to slice open a shallow cut on my tiny baby arm as an experiment (Baby life is boring, yo) and luckily for my mother's sanity, it ended up healing over before she found my goofy ass staring dumbfounded at my own arm.

Anyway, despite being completely sure that I wasn't reincarnated as a baseline human, I only realized what the hell was up with me when I first picked up reading.

There I was, all ready to make Mom proud with my sublime reading skillz (just like when I'd perfectly timed my first words to utterly ruin AJ's day) when the damn letters flew off the page. For some reason, Mom seemed to know this would be the case though, because (and this is the part that sold it for me) she busted out some old Sanskrit textbooks and them shits contorted themselves into perfect English prose near-instantly.

As I sat there, some cosmic power mainlining pseudo-Sanskrit to my visual cortex, where I figured out I was in the PJO Universe, reincarnated as a pasty little Jain boi, to the sweetest, Gujarati lady this side of the Delaware.

It genuinely took me longer than most babies to leverage my speed-reading and spinning-character interpretation to be able to read basic English. AJ had a field day teasing Mom about her special little boy glaring at the letter R next to a rainbow pictograph.

I was frustrated at the setback, but I wasn't an AI specialist in my last life for nothing. When all else fails, Brute Force it. I'd trained machines with far inferior neural counts to recognize digits. The human brain makes those machines look like four-fingered primates. Now, if only these damned characters would stay consistent. But nooooo, we must have a new axis of rotation every time I glance away from the things. Spinny-Spin-Spin! Spinny-Spin-Spin!

It took me all of my toddler-hood to get reading and writing sorted out. When most toddlers would be out stuffing their face with dirt, building up their immune systems, I was stuck going over ever-changing patterns of axial drift to try and make some semblance of the letter J. Needless to say, the whole thing freaked AJ out.

"Vini Aunty? You see RJ reading a Greek textbook too, right? Working at McDonald's hasn't finally drained the last of my sanity, right?"

Mom was having none of it though, "Oh hush, I offered to pay you for helping around the house. I even got Nia to sign off on it."

AJ broke eye-contact with me (My victory is inevitable, mortal) to level a stare at Mom, "Ma'd sign away guardianship if you let her and you know it."

I tuned out before AJ really got going, trying and failing to cram Greek in beside the Latin. Of course I'm gonna try and get the main language for both my possible safe havens down, so I'll at least have the chance to blend in with the rest of the unclaimed. I don't pretend to know what brutal amalgamation of timelines and realities I'm about to traipse in on, but I'd rather have all the tools in my belt that I can get.

In researching more into the strain of Jainism present in this universe, I kinda hit on the same blend of bewilderment and enlightenment (I couldn't resist) that I had in my last life. Minimalism was the key to modern Jainism. Just like how ancient Greek and Roman pantheons had evolved their tenets with time, I was fairly confident I'd found the nerve to gauge any Jain deities I run into if such exist. Which they should, for I was clearly a Jain demigod... right?

Regardless of that existential crisis time-bomb, I had validated the existence of the Greco-Roman setup through another utterly stupid plan. I Iris-called Iris. Or tried to. I obviously didn't have any drachmae/dranchma to hand out, but the polite voice denying my collect-call request pretty much cleared most doubts.

In hindsight, that could've gone any number of ways, but I'd learned what I needed to. And since we'd just stepped into another millennia, I was confident I could relatively line myself up with Percy's admission into Yancy. And while I could spend the interim building myself up from the mortal side of things, set myself up with stocks or any number of things, I knew Minimalism was the way to go with my crowd, so I did what I had perfected in my old life. I coasted.

Aside from a relatively rigorous physical regime, I mostly coasted by most of my classes, only bothering to play up my strengths in math and programming in case I ever needed to fall back to my AI shenanigans. People never questioned the Indian crushing math tests and Mom was happy as long as I never slacked off enough to slump below an B.

Hell, most of my time was spent helping AJ and his friends with college-level Math. Calculus and the like. In the end, if I got a little too invested into the tactics and survival of their D&D party adventuring through my pseudo-modernized Greek-inspired campaigns, they took it in stride. Some cool ideas to try out if I'm ever forced to resort to violence.

An unexpected bonus of having 'Vini Aunty' as my mother? She was connected enough to allow me to join the rich douche bags attending Yancy. Mom definitely did donate anything above what we needed to live in basic luxury, which has not only earned her a place in the hearts of the community but also attracted the attention of the philanthropic elite, the kind that ship their kids off to places like Yancy. It was exceedingly difficult to time my rebellious phase at just the right moment for her to indulge me with a year away from home. In a place like Yancy.

Have I mentioned how much I hate Yancy? The place is literally training the next generation of smarmy egotistical bastards. If not for Grover and Percy... well actually, if not for them I wouldn't even _be_ here in the first place. So they deserve my company. As ridiculous as it may turn out sometimes.

"When you said, 'Paint the Town Red', I really thought this couldn't turn into another RJ escapade, dude." I snort at Percy's vacant gaze, his vivid imagination probably running wild trying to cope with the amount of Kool-Aid covering...everything. "Should've known better."

Nancy Boba-Fett's private room never quite recovered. Neither did she, especially since Goat-Boy wasn't around to tattle on us this time and _someone_ may have suggested to the faculty the redecoration may have been self-inflicted. Mean-spirited? Yes. Did she _really_ deserve it? Maybe not. Was it more satisfying than turning the other cheek for the 500th time because she's just a victim of parental negligence? Absolutely.

It did end up with Chiron sussing me out within a week of arriving at Yancy because Grover wouldn't shut up about my influence on Percy. Even Dodds didn't suspect anything before it was too late. I guess in the end it worked out in both our favors, Grover adding another powerful demigod to his tally. I just wish it could've been enough to take us out of here early. Y'know, before the whole "Percy accidentally stabs his Pre-Algebra teacher" part.

It was a good day to be reborn.

Actually no, Poseidon and Zeus were feuding, the weather had gone to shit. Kronos really could not have picked out a better time to set things in motion. As we rolled into the museum proper, I started up a silent chant of the _Navkaar_ mantra, hoping to survive the events in the upcoming books.

It was time to get cracking.

A/N: Hey. Sorry for the wait. Let me sort some things out. I'll get this show back on the road momentarily.


End file.
